How do I drill or drive a screw where the drill will not fit?

Kitchen carcasses, cupboard interiors, between joists, behind a cistern, inside a wardrobe — a drill needs perhaps 200mm of clearance from chuck face to the back of the body, and these places do not have it. There is a well-established ladder of solutions and almost nobody climbs past the first rung.

Step by step

1. Start with a stubby bit or a short holder.Screwdriver bits come in 25mm and 50mm lengths; the short ones with a compact magnetic holder save 30 or 40mm. Stubby drill bits exist too. This costs almost nothing and solves the marginal cases.
2. Try turning the drill round.Sometimes the obstruction is the battery, not the nose. A drill approached from the other side of the obstruction, or with the pack removed and swapped for a slim one, gains real clearance.
3. Fit a right-angle attachment.A short hex-shanked gearbox that goes into your existing chuck and turns the drive through 90 degrees. It reduces the clearance needed to around 60mm, costs very little, and lives in the bag permanently once you own one.
4. Accept what the attachment gives up.Torque is transmitted through a small gear set, so it does not like long screws or big bits, and the whole assembly wants to rotate in your hand — you have to hold it. For pilot holes and modest screws it is fine.
5. Step up to a dedicated right-angle drill for repeat work.If you are wiring out a loft, fitting a run of kitchen units or drilling through a line of studs, a right-angle drill has the torque and the handle to control it. It is a specialist purchase and a very good hire.
6. Use a flexible drive shaft for awkward angles rather than tight ones.A flexible shaft reaches round corners and into recesses that no rigid tool will. It is poor at torque and it whips if you let it, so it suits small fasteners and light drilling.
7. Consider drilling somewhere else entirely.The most reliable answer is often to move the hole, drill the part before assembly, or take the door off. Fighting a tool into a gap produces angled holes, and an angled hole in the wrong place is worse than a straight one 50mm away.

Tips

• A right-angle attachment turns the bit at 90 degrees to the drill, which means the drill body ends up parallel to the surface. Check you have room for the drill sideways before you buy one.
• An offset screwdriver — a hand tool, no motor — will start and finish screws in spaces nothing powered can reach, and costs less than any of the above.
• For a hole through a joist in a floor void, an auger bit in a right-angle drill is the trade answer, and a hire shop will have both.

Common mistakes

• Levering the drill at an angle to make it fit — The bit goes in crooked, the flutes rub the sides of the hole, and in a screw it cams out and rounds the head. Angled holes in cabinet work are visible forever.
• Using a right-angle attachment on a long screw — The small gears take the full torque. They will strip, and the attachment usually costs more than the screwdriver you should have used.

Questions people ask